more the patient.

it's almost like I can touch it -
this intangible grace,
as my hands run up and out and over the traces of the good He is

fingertip glancing the softest touch - for oh, how the softest one both thrills and humbles me
over this life-abundant, swollen with Him
doing worship as I look, and see, and love
and song burst from the heart, out to His glory to Everlasting

I think of how
there has been no ease, but there is rest
there has been no momentary quench, but deep satisfaction grows
and a more genuine smile, a more understanding ear,
a more broken and healing heart, more the patient than ever anything else.

   Enjoying Psalm 63 - inviting you to share.

little rays

peeking around clouds,

tip-toeing through grey & blue

dropping lavish - gold & warm, into our souls,

like a hand to hold,

or a happy hug

You drip, drop, delight onto world-weary hearts

Praise Your name, Jesus Christ.






 

This is wonderful.

much of His peace.

gravity of gospel.

it's been a tattering last couple of days,
as I try to piece together
this:

I'm trying to reconcile
standing, hearing the bloodiest shriek -

eyes rolling - not inhuman, but depraved.
I'm wondering, 'what in God's name am I doing here?'

how does an anxious, rumpled, twenty-something
find herself called
Here. With purpose.

Suffering tries to steal it.
worry grinds in deep, haunting memory.
Death, in all its suffocating power aims for precedence.


this threatens to take us all.
I've never seen it so grave.
So clear, and true, and bright the choice.

Even here, in the sobs of not understanding,
He is. Thank God! He is Who He is.

More than black, white and tangible page,

that burn and blot and tear

blood and body, Words from Holy lips

resounding - hounding for dear ones

to come to Life

for His Name's sake.

Daddo

Lately, he's been "Daddo",

with a grin and wink that shows my cocky young adult spirit.

He's gone through many transformations

this hero-man, who's just a man

in the 24 years I've been his.

And he wishes, all his...

That's the thing about daughters and dads

there's all heart found-up, all tied-up in the growing up and going.

And he swells with pride to the limits of himself -

and gets frustrated.

But I'm not.

Because, he does - get all me. The Daddo-girl that needs help figuring out how to replace my taillight and change the oil in my car, or financial advice, or a few flowers sent to say I'm cherished. He's the one with the words to soothe a pre-interview worry with a dose of sideline-cheerer dad, and a tendered heart with a dose of if-you-liked-it-then-you-shoulda-put-a-ring-on-it dad. And he makes me laugh.

Maybe because I got his sense of humour.

He's the one to hear all of daughter-me, as hilarious and arduous I'm sure it sometimes is.

He works too long, on too many things. Doesn't sit in the sun enough. And we're still working on the shorts, black socks and shoes thing, and his cookie-monster habits.

But he's Dad; Daddo for now.

and his girl loves him.

it's that Good.

Even the weakest hand I would hold




For my lips can kiss


and they are felt and known.





Not struck in the contempt of ignorance.






The silliest I embrace


for it is no matter in my House




Truly it is better lose it


in Holy's Good glory.







Love conquers death
of the humbled,
dying.


In struggle to hold onto life so much;


You cannot feel the gentleness of my Hand's touch.





My burden is easy - my load light;


And you want to fool acting strong.







You couldn't love me yet,


otherwise you would revel in my Grace.






Come to me and admit the broken-

shed disgrace with thanksgiving.







For I have been coming to redeem long before you realized


the gravest imagining of your shortcoming.









- This is Good News.








Repent, Taste, Enjoy, Live:



by Christ Jesus.

break.down.

ended up sitting in the middle of mess- surrounded by pieces that impossibly fit together - listening to His voice to know when to move one, and where: to follow holy as I have never before.

break.down.
Ignorance threatening terror - but these words are of the most delicious of all.
If I know Him who whispers them,
The One who brings our bodies up with His, through sin - brokenness - and blood,
The One who crushes walls - no matter the magnificence, to get to you - to me.

craving: the frankness of one's insidious sin,
Death to be risen,
And Grace, the soothing balm to mend the ache.
I dance, limping - contented sways of hip to the Master's hum.

break.down -
by violent crash,
or Lover's potent whisper,
into the sweetest Landing of this World.

And be

all. swept. up.



- with Em and others
much peace.

[FULL]

full.
yep, I'm full: of Christmas food and gifts (oh, the resolutions that will come of this...), and WORD - as I say "thank You, thank You" in the darkness lit by candlelight.

my eyes have been renewed - and I see them standing there, finally in His presence - in Light. and I say 'thank You, thank You'

Emmanuel, filler of space hidden in darkness. Lighter of hearts cold and longing.
The fullness of God - miracle of Incarnation, in this inconsequential village on a lakeside. Incarnating, again and again - so we light canldles, warm at their flickers and sing "Joy'.

we adore Thee.

unfurl

remaining
means to let go:

palms upturned,
work-fingers quieted,

and be caught up in His wild, loving embrace
made colour in His stroke
and beautiful as He blows through ash and soot,
Seeker of clay, Breather of this life

to unfurl, for All -
into All
He is.

somewhere along the way, I fell...

well it happened last night,
on a major street downtown - down to my knees
after a toe-dive into that pot-hole.
they are bruised today.
Rectified with a laugh and Friendship.

How often do I find mysef here?
How often have I questioned?
was that a misstep, or a normal one in uneven territory?
and here's the thing,
the bumps still happen and I still fall laughing-
in Love.


giving thanks to the One in all steps, jumps, flailings and landings.
its a great journey - thank You for letting me live it.

clouds of witness

"It's like a ... cloud." she whispered, eyes straight ahead looking, in rapture at the Holy Baker. Only eating cheesecake, the restaurant became sanctuary - the table an altar, and we received Christ, laughing together - reverence for God's (cheesy) gifts.

He gave us eyes so that we would see His work

and hearts, softened, that we might feel His glory

and hands to touch, and clasp, and press together in prayer and supplication;

with pain and questions and anger;

with hope and faith;

with thanksgiving for His promises

His work, interwoven - perfect in our lives,

bringing peace,

unity,

focus and purpose.

How beautiful You are!

How mighty and grand Your wonders to witness.

Friends, how good He is.

How I am reminded when I witness Him in you.

giving thanks as I slip off to work:

• for the reminder to go explore
• for licks of September on summer breezes
• for Nutmeg - my feisty, sweet rabbit.
• for a place to go.
  

holding hands

I wish that I can always hold it:
this hand.
I've had to for many procedures and waves of symptoms now.

I am in awe at how holding hands makes it better for him.
I am in awe at how tender we remain to the touch of Shalom, though we are far from whole ourselves; at how Christ can touch him through plastic gloves, isolation gowns and masks covering faces.
still he jokes and calls me sweetie as a needle passes through.
I love him, even though he will be gone soon. I can't think on that much or I would stop loving him - withdraw and start protecting me.

Christ love is costly.
it poses danger. it hurts.

And it also heals, and wholes, and values.

Countless, I have loosened the grip of my hand.
Yet, in great, great mercy Christ firmly grabs up all of me -
I'll learn to do the same.

Today, I am thankful for:

• T&M - bubbles. Thank you.
• work.
• planning ahead.
• spontaneous visits from grandparents.

Child’s grace.

I am home briefly on a day's interlude between weddings;
Wisps of empty moments fill with sleep and remembering His work.
Dear friends are married - one, as He is One.

While out west the week of the wedding, I had the deepest pleasure of staying with the bride's family - enjoying parents and children, and Him in them in their ways.

Thursday night - clothed with tradition, wife-and-husband-to-be had honoured the bride's parents and elders with warm cups of tea. Ceremony of thanks and refreshment.
And in return, they were showered, and they were blessed: in flows from Father through quiet, strong daddy, sweeping them up sure and free in Hesed of small, faithful Jacob-mama, made ready in His time.

I wept so happy - for each of us is child-longing, waiting to receive, steadily opening to blessing-prepared and faith-shared.

and here I write of Child's grace...

Hands that held her
And made me -
I long for them to bless.

Burn, hard, real and deep;
Soul heat.
I long for the words of Christ on your lips.

I am child-blessed if I look,
Where you don’t know yet He shines.
And wait and wait and pray.

For your hands to clasp,
Knees to numb to feeling ground,
And heart enlivened, pounding as at birth.

And for you to bless me;
For you to speak to me Christ-
Father, my prayer.

You, in whose womb I rested long and grew -
How I long for you, Mother-Christ:
For drawing me in deep and down where blood washes sin.

To teach me this body too -
To anticipate its needs and nurture,
And to revel together in His glory - woman.

I long for days when rugged faith
Walks into future from bearer to born,
And His Cross is yours and mine.

Grace, and grace, and grace again –
Grace only can make children.
Grace only can let them wonder for grown-up things.

Tonight I give thanks:

• for safe flights.
• strangers, friends & in-between.
• bouquets of flowers.
• leads & follows.
• patience.

things & signs

Things are not often as they seem.
Or maybe, they're just more.
For personal instance: a person who like cats can become a best friend (though retaining an affection for cats...).
Considering this, I am so glad and humbled.

Little tiny-big glimpses of the Infinite, of the Incarnate -winks to the holy through His Ways.
Delighting, tantilizing and inviting through the rough-edged, cracking and part-polished.
This is His Way for us with others. His way for us in beautiful artwork. This is God's way to us, and ours to Him.
There is more beyond the surface of what we know through sense and discipline - encounters with truth to open us up to great Truth.
... I'm sure it ALL has grander name and scope; one (or is it many), that I can't possibly imagine, define or utter.
Left to awe, and wonder, and make steps in faith toward the One who speaks of such wonder, and promises to make it near, to make it fully mine and ours with Him.

Today I am thankful:

• for work together in teams.
• for not being able to do all, but doing what you can.
• for new Words.

men with chests.

Four strapping men sit at my parent’s table and prove C.S. Lewis wrong (! Sorry Lewy… this pains me to type it). Or maybe more that there is more truth beyond the truth he wrote on. The premise of Lewis’ The Abolition of Man is that the post-modern man-without-chest represents humanity’s collective loss of heart as it loses it's connection to Love.
These four are a hope of a remnant; His gift of common good and grace. They are carpenters, with work-hewn hands who first showed up on the doorstep of my family home with pizza in hand and a rented movie. They have been living there, week by week since February.
They said they ‘didn’t even think about it’. They said ‘it’s what friends do’.
But they became my brothers the moment that they loved mine.
They stepped into my family when so many others left, who were unable to bridge the gap of illness and mystery that only love can.
It’s not mushy love.
It’s the sort of love that pounds nails into my brother’s house.
It’s the sort of love that teases me at the table that I should maybe come home more often for family dinners (I live in a city 7 hours away).
It’s the sort of love that lives together for a week at a time in my parents' basement, affectionately renamed, “The Orphanage”.
It’s the sort of love that takes international flights together without fear of ‘what if’s?’
A love that doesn’t focus on the count of the cost – because love is priceless.
It’s the love Christ spoke of,
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
- John 15:13
And this love sits at my family’s table every weeknight, talking about facial hair grooming techniques, bicep size, Mom’s cooking and how Grandma (now nicknamed, Gwen Stefani) has a new haircut. And we are blessed.

Today, I am thankful:

• for A, C, D, & G (the 'bro-skis').
• lavender.
• the way of flags in soft breezes.
• linking arms.

Father love.

I saw a little girl racing along a path through a park on her scooter this evening- doing it because she loved it, with the wind blowing back her hair and widening her huge smile.

And then she hit a rock.


All of that momentum stopped and she hit the ground with her scooter.



Her dad was up and running toward her with a timing that would make you wonder if he had known future things. But he's a dad - anticipation and protection go hand in hand. His fatherhood was made in response to her daughterhood - even when she was just a hope.


He loves her with father-love. He kissed her forehead, as she straightened herself, and her scooter, up.


He picked up the rock that had stopped her fun, and the wind in her face. He threw it far into the grass, away from the path.


Then he picked up the peices of her now-broken bell. The two of them chatted about that broken bell, because she was upset about it.


To the on-looker, it was just a bell and a scuffed scooter - but it mattered to this dad because it mattered to his daughter. Just as it matters that his daughter loves riding the scooter and ringing the bell. His daughter loves riding the scooter and ringing the bell.


With his kisses and words, she was back on the scooter - riding out dreams and energy with scuffs of remembrance on it's handle bar and one on her knee.





Today, I give Him thanks for:

• warm afternoon naps.


• the sound of water over rocks.


• voids that make you curious.


• His Fatherhood.


• daughter-living.


• my own father-love, who called me when I was buckled over by papers, work and life a few weeks ago - who spoke his words of fatherhood over me, and who sent me flowers as good as kisses.
  

the rub.

I think. I write. I say things. I live things. Over the past few years, I have been awakened to a story worth telling and living – one inspired of God.
I enjoy the intricacy of it. I’m honoured to be a part of it.
I take pride in it – and, ah, there’s the rub.
Pride.
I don’t like my pride. I don’t like admitting that I have it. Railing against my pride, I often wonder if the solution to it is to do away with things things to take pride in – a profession, an education? If I should sequester myself in some abbey, and scrub floors and give away everything I have? Because the moment that words come together in thoughts or in words on a page, is one of my many moments of temptation.
Pride affects everything and every part. My job. My grad studies. My beauty. My story. My relationships. Ironically, I have struggled for a long time with having confidence in myself – I go through a lot of self-loathing in fact, and some Christians (myself included) can get stuck into this mentality that self-loathing is a good thing because it cleanses you of your bad little habits – to cut yourself off on your own strength, showing God how determined you really are. Bad thing is, it can also bolster the hold of pride in your life with an outwardly impressive veneer. Inside you’re still struggling, you’re still weak and an horrid as we all are, but you stifle your own cries to Christ. How utterly pitiful. How utterly less than what we were made for – and yet here, I am a co-conspirator of pride.
I have little confidence because I choose to ignore the gift of Christ to be my strength – instead, very much too often I embrace the tantalizing ‘promises’ of pride. It promises me power to wield, a sense of control over myself in a myriad of ways. The difficulty is this, the pursuit of maintaining one’s pride – it burdens, it destroys, it kills.
Friends, pride has made me nearly dead in so many ways – and, it’s made me introduce death to others too; separation from God. Sin that so easily entangles – though again and again we are reminded by scripture, I suppose pridefully, I am often surprised when I find myself so thick into it and unable to define precisely when I first conceded to it. If pride was frank about it, as it often is in its later stages, I imagine I’d be reviled at its attempt to ensnare me.
So, why continue things outwardly? Especially, why blog about it? Why continue in things that are rewarding to us? Why continue to do things that can so easily transition into nesting grounds of temptation? - Is this not like setting yourself up for disaster? Or like disobeying the direct command to flee from temptation?
In many ways the dealings with our Lord and our sin occur deeply and privately. But, important too is deal with the sin of pride outwardly - the difference is that you call moments of pride out for what they are - you confess, and then, you find yourself in Christ; amidst the chorus of those calling out to and boasting in Christ. Struggling with or against pride only gets me more tangled up - Christ says simply, Come, humble yourself and I give you rest, you get to know me Who is the only worthy and capable of saving and untangling. Just be – you are sinful. I judge, redeem, sanctify, make right, sustain and fill.

Body of belief.

Belief is not 'merely' what I once thought: culminating in a purely cognitive or spiritual exercise. Belief is meant to be embodied: lived out with every straining fibre of our whole Self – the mind, the body, the spirit.
How many times have we heard good things, good news and simply do not believe it? That we intellectualize it into a neat cognitive box or out of possibility? Or romanticize it to the point that in dissolves into something euphorically intangible and superficially sentimental?
I do this all of the time - particularly, in relation to my faith, where I read one thing and am perhaps even passionately convicted by it, but distinctly believe in my body it’s antithesis; I continue living out what could be called a lie (though very much tangible in reality), and dismissing Truth.
I’ve been meditating on this for the last few weeks, and here’s the verse. We can look at it together,
The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. - Matthew 26:41
If you, just as myself and I ascertain many others, have traditionally read this with an interpretation that justifies the imposition of guilt inspired, stern self-regulation toward improving personal piety, than: Good news! There is no end to the fullness that God’s words can speak to us. There is more.
This verse well defines a very literal problem – a disconnect between the indwelling and an outworking of Christian faith. Often, we sequester our faith lives into the interior recesses of our beings rather than wearing them upon our sleeves (or foreheads, or wrists), because, most likely, we have grown up into the prevalent understanding that faith is equal to the spiritual and/or religious which belongs to the personal domain. An untouchable, unrecognizable faith, imperceptible to the scrutiny of anything or anyone else; a faith we internally mediate to satisfy our personal whims and needs - the delight of every individual.
But here, though this verse certainly indicates that there is a failing on the part of the body to work out one’s faith (and how humbling that is), belief is anticipated to be externalized in our bodies – our lives. Embodiment is part of belief. The ramifications of this are stunning. We are ushered into a community of embodied believers.
The last several months have meant a renewed, deeper pursuit of living out Christ in my superficial myself. I know - sounds highly mysterious and, even perhaps like a retreat back to a disconnected, intangible ‘spiritual’ discourse meant to bolster a believer with a sense of being above reproach. I'll be upfront with my confidence, Jesus Christ. A man who existed in history; sharing with you, and me the common experience of living, walking, and breathing on this earth. And He also spoke real words – words that more often than not confound me, not because I need to be some sort of hyperspiritual person to interpret them – but because I am often unacquainted the glories He speaks of in my common experience (i.e. most recent: not including myself to possess the dignity innate to humanity, because it has not been understood as part of my concept of Self, and thus not lived out in my body). This ignorance presses me to want more understanding – not for knowledge sake, but in rhythm with the will of Him Who came to offering the strength we so lack. Strength to possess body and belief.

Lord of the ... Heart

Little things matter big to us.

For some of my patient's, their deepest sufferings come not from their diseases but from the missing of a favorite item, a smile from a familiar face. Our deepest delights can come in the form of tiny newborns, admiring the purposed tasks of industrious insects, a hand squeeze or the briefest gaze as a tiny reminder of love.


This week, the time came to put away a favorite, precious token that I have had for five years. To be honest, I never considered that ever happening... but, as God has repeated to me over and over, He is doing a new thing.

The token always reminded me of my commitments - tiny in the span of time and verbage it took to declare them. The bigger things it represented - the commitments haven't changed in the least, but my relationship to that representative token has.

It represented my fear as much as my commitment; I felt that if I didn't have it near me, that I would sabbotage my commitment and God's will. More and more, I realize that it represented a distrust of myself and worse still, a deep distrust of my Love, my God.


Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.

Song of Solomon 8:6


The heart, innately beats for the purposes of living. If the heart does not function as it should, correction is necessary - but the heart, being a heart, seeks only to do what it is made for: beating, pumping, sustaining.

Likewise, we exist, purposefully - and yes, we are in need of discipline and correction - but we are also wonderful, beautiful, dignified, entrusted with our humanity. Created that way and created to live knowing that. Trusting that.

in four letters.

You are going to hear me expound on this. Freedom is a four letter word exploding from my chest, taking my breath away, filling my soul with thirst quenching hope, moving my body in dance, singing with my voice thought lost. Love inspires and sustains; it grows and frees. Love sets us free.
now to believe it. to trust it.

grins to you.

I’m sitting here in my apartment alone at my computer finishing up two assignments with a big smile on my face, and a bigger one in my heart – the cause of which is nothing to do with the impending freedom from a few papers…
Sometimes – well all of the time likely, but sometimes you realize it… you have moments of shear happiness, at joys of your life. I am delighted. To watch the absolutely beautiful transformations that God is making in the lives of my dear ones. Bringing them together, taking them away, deepening and strengthening them. It is such a privilege to watch it, and such a deep pleasure. I am blessed overflowing with acquaintances of incredible faith and character, grace, hospitality and love.
In this moment, I am reminded that though much is and has been wrong, that beauty and peace reside in this world in a loving God working in, no- living in the hearts of His children - doing new things in the peaks and valleys, sorrows and celebrations of their journeys. Gah! So good.